Tag Archives: digital marketing

You’re just starting out marketing a business or non-profit organization using various social media channels and tools. You’re not a social media expert yet, but you will be very soon. What’s your next step? It’s wise to start off with some boundaries around your social media posts and content sharing.

In addition to maintaining your standards and representing your brand with excellence, here are six best practices that span all of the top five social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and Instagram) and most other social media channels. In other words, if you start off using these best practices, your chances of early success will increase greatly. Continue reading →

Most non-developers are completely ignorant of, if not intimidated by SEO. Even some software developers won’t go near it. SEO has been called “black magic,” “dark art”and “pseudoscience,” most likely because if you happen to get it right, you win all the Googles! And everybody wants to win at being on the first page of the Google search engine results page (SERP).

Well, when you’re done reading this post, you won’t be quite as frightened at the mention of “SEO” as you used to be, and you might even have the confidence to say, “I can do this!” because you actually can. Here are the seven things you have to do to win at SEO and get your website to the first page of the Google search engine results page. Continue reading →

Armed with an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, Lauren decided to add digital marketing skills to her tool-kit to make herself even more competitive. Now, Lauren works for Aha! leading their content strategy and marketing.

The OODA loop was created as part of a military strategy developed by USAF Colonel John Boyd. Col. Boyd proposed that agility in any military situation involving humans would defeat raw power if the fighters continually used the OODA loop. We can do the same in our digital marketing efforts. Continue reading →

The world of digital marketing is all about the numbers. We conduct experiments and measure them against our goals using the metrics and analytics tools that enable us to learn and get better at our craft.

There are many tools out there, some free and some paid, but the easiest tools to access, use, and learn from are completely free. These are marketing analytics tools that you should be using today. Continue reading →

When you go shopping for new clothes, online or in a brick and mortar store, which section do you hit first, the men’s or the women’s clothing? Good. OK, when you need a new power cord for your computer or smartphone, do you go to the Windows section or the Mac section? Finally, when you are in Europe at a great local restaurant, do you ask for the menu in English or in the local language?

Your specific answers to these questions are not the point. The point is that my answers may be the same or different from your answers. With that understanding, if you owned any one of the store types mentioned above – clothing, computer, food – you might ask me these types of questions when I walk in the door, or you might provide signage that shows me the way without having to be asked. Continue reading →

Using social media to market your business is something every business should do; however, despite what some may think, social media is not free. There’s at least a minimum investment that you have to make, even if it’s just your time, existing knowledge, and ability. When there’s an investment in the business, it becomes necessary to measure the return you’re getting on that investment, your ROI.

But how do you measure the ROI of social media? Well, the math is the same as any other ROI calculation:

ROI = (RETURN – INVESTMENT) / INVESTMENT

The math, the calculation, is easy. Defining “return” and “investment” are the hard parts. Here are 7 variables to consider when measuring, proving, and defending the ROI on your social media investment. Continue reading →

How well do you know your brand? DO you know your brand? Actually, “brand” is an uncomfortable topic for many startup founders and small business owners, simply because they weren’t thinking about their brand when they started. It’s not a knock on them. Every entrepreneur has a vision of how their organization can change the world and how they can make a lot of money. But very few enter into the world of entrepreneurship intentionally considering and planning their brand. Continue reading →

In case you’ve not yet heard the term, “growth hacking” is a term that’s been bandied about for several years now. On the one hand, those who get it and embrace it seem to just do it. To these experienced marketers, growth hacking is just using the technologies at their disposal to grow a product or business. But, unfortunately, the term “growth hacking” has also been misused by marketers who haven’t changed the way they’re doing things, but rather have simply added “growth hacker” to their LinkedIn profile in an effort to get new business.

So what exactly is growth hacking, and what is not growth hacking? Let’s take a look at some industry sources.

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